


Thursday

by the_nita



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Clintasha - Freeform, F/M, Prompt Fic, beginning relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:36:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_nita/pseuds/the_nita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My Blue (littleblueartist.tumblr.com) gave me a prompt for a Clintasha story all my own. </p>
<p>It was: Clint and Nat are sparring before Nat has to go on her mission to help Cap (in cap 2) and he jokes that she's gonna fall for his good looks or whatnot and she gets touchy about it and lays him out and he's like WTF and then cut to later before she leaves she says good bye and Clint notices the arrow necklace she's wearing and he asks her about it and she gets flustered and he kisses her and yeah feelings?</p>
<p>I ran with that - it's been about a week since I started and last night the muse rode me hard and I finished it. She likes it. I hope you do too.</p>
<p>Oh - and Steve Rogers? He's all Bacta's fault (bactaqueen.tumblr.com) because he now has a voice in my head. Dammit. ;-)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thursday

It was Thursday and if there was anything that resembled a routine in their lives, it was that if it was Thursday and they were both in the same city and both not undercover or being eaten alive by paperwork, Clint and Natasha could be found in the dojo. They would spend the entire day there, stopping periodically for water but little else. If you asked them, they'd say the hunger wasn't an issue. He was used to sitting for hours on end as a sniper and she had been trained by the Red Room. Hell, it was often either Clint himself or Coulson who would ensure she remembered to eat. But on Thursdays? They would grab a case of water bottles, his quiver and bow, her bracelets, and lock themselves in.

The morning would consist of target practice. He would put arrow after arrow into increasingly far away targets as she would try to break his concentration. She would push him. Shove him. Tease him. Tickle him (he was surprisingly ticklish if you caught his biceps with the brush of your fingernails). She once even zapped him in the tush with the Widow Sting. The bloodlust in his eyes after he stopped swearing at her suggested that the next time she fried him in the ass, they'd better be fighting for real because he would stick an arrow in hers.

After target practice, having demonstrated once again that he truly deserved the call-sign "Hawkeye", they would move to close combat practice. He would attack her from various positions, using different weapons and doing her the same favour - trying to break her concentration and have her fail. Once, he came up behind her, grabbing her into a headlock. While she was slipping down to get out of it, he leaned forward fast enough to lick a long wet line down the center of her face. That got him a special beating that had him heading to the infirmary for stitches and a stern talking to and a giant grin that didn't leave his face for two days.

It was Thursday. They had just finished up on the range and were changing clothes to start sparring when Clint noticed Natasha was being very closed mouthed. Even more than her normal want, she was extremely quiet today. He pondered it for a while, stretching out his legs, his arms being ready to go from a few hours at the range already. She was his partner. While he got that she wasn't a very talkative person, he thought that at least she should be willing to tell him what was going on. If no one else, at least he was the one she was supposed to be able to talk to. Right?

He threw punches at her to have her block them. He'd tried tripping her, biting her, going for an arm bar, and a straightforward choke hold. Nothing. She was as efficient as always, maintaining her level expression, emotionless and serene. Finally he stepped back, grabbing a towel to wipe his forehead as he examined her.

"What's up, Tasha?" he asked after looking at her for a good five minutes. With him not attacking, she had started running through her forms, shifting from karate to ju-jitsu to gong fu. She was fluid and breathtaking as she slid from position to position, strength and grace married into a whole that made him ache to watch. It was like looking at a perfect sculpture come to life. "Something's bugging you. You might as well tell me."

She flicked her eyes to him. "I have to go on a mission. I leave tomorrow at oh four hundred."

He shrugged, "Okay. You've gone on lots of missions. I'm guessing since there's no mission brief for me that I'm not your backup. You got one this time?"

She nodded tightly. "Rogers. They've decided that we're going to infiltrate a possible terrorist base together. He's my 'boyfriend'." Her eyes rolled slightly as she said it. "He is good in a fight, though."

"And he's perfect boyfriend material," Clint drawled. When Natasha looked at him quizzically, he snorted. "Six foot four. Blond. Built. Blue eyes. Jaw so square, he's a 50's throwback, only he's even older than that. Perfect inverted V body." He grinned at her, trying to get a rise out of her now, "And he's so sweet he'll make your teeth ache. He's perfect for you."

Natasha stopped dead in her form, "For me? How?"

He snorted and walked closer to his partner, "Come on, Nat. He's every woman's happy fantasy at night and the one they're sighing over when we go save the world. I could be wearing clown makeup and a burlap sack for all they notice me."

Brows drawn in tight, Natasha looked at him more intently, "But you and I are not supposed to get noticed. We're spies," she said to him as if he was slow. "Why would we want to be noticed?"

Clint threw his head back, laughing. When he looked back at her, his eyes were full of mischief, "Oh, I point out, you're no slouch either. The hard part will be peeling the locals off the two of you. Just do me one favour, Red?"

Head tilted slightly and curious, "What?"

"Don't fall for him. I know he'll be hard to resist. He is Captain America and all, but don't forget your real partner." His grin broadened. "Or at least," he cracked, licking his lips and wiggled his eyebrows at her, "take pictures and tell me stories later."

Natasha looked at him like he was insane, "Barton, are you telling me that you think Rogers and I...." Her voice trailed off as she frowned at him. "Clint, you're the only partner I would ever want. You have to know that."

His eyes flashed up and down suggestively as he looked at her. "Yeah, but you've never had to kiss Captain Perfect before. Once you go Capsicle, you never look back. You won't be able to help yourself." He mimicked a stereotypical female reaction to Steve, sighing and breathing deep and looking helpless, then leering at her, smirk firmly in place, "And there's no way he's not going to want you."

In retrospect, it probably had been a bad idea for him to needle Tasha as much as he did. After all, she was his partner and he should have known better, but pushing her buttons was what he did. He should, however, have remembered that pushing her buttons was best done at a minimum safe distance. Her fist connecting solidly with his jaw told him that he had failed to do that, as well as let his guard down.

"Jesus Christ, Nat! What the hell was that for?" He was sprawled on the mat, arms and legs akimbo from having at least had the presence of mind to breakfall. Incredulous, he glared at his partner. Her eyes flashed at him, her plump lower lip now firmly between her teeth. The truth of it hit him harder than her fist had. "I...hit a nerve. Shit. Nat, you coulda told me. I mean it." Voice rough and breaking slightly, he gathered himself together and stood, visibly outside her reach. "You could have just said that you were interested in him. I would have understood." His jaw tightened and he stood ramrod straight, "I mean, he's Captain America. Tall, blond, gorgeous and at least his weapon comes back. He's not chasing arrows all over the field."

Turning, not waiting for her reply, he headed for the door. He couldn't look at her right now. If he did, he'd wind up begging or something stupid like that. They'd only just started being more than just partners, being friends and close ones even, after so many years and to have her sock him in the jaw because she'd rather be with Steve fucking Rogers than him was both entirely predictable and hurt like hell. "Safe mission, Nat," he muttered from the doorway, before he fled.

Natasha stared at the door, frowning. That isn't what she had meant at all. She liked Rogers. He was a good agent, an excellent man to have fighting at your side and essentially good at heart. He truly did inspire the rest of the Avengers to be better than they were. But he could never take Clint's place. He was .. he simply wasn't Clint. She wasn't sure yet what exactly the two of them were but there was no way that Rogers could replace him for her. She had punched Clint because he was being annoying. And he held still too long and she could, which was the point of sparring, right? She was going on a mission - for SHIELD. Why would he even begin to think that?

She wasn't going to go chase after him. She knew her partner well enough that when he was sulking, the worst thing to do was to chase him. While she might not understand how he managed to read her that wrong on the punch, she understood that. But she needed to get some perspective and deal with this before she shipped out. She wasn't entirely sure how long she and Rogers would be undercover but she knew that leaving things with Barton this way was a sure way to have a very angry Hawk when she returned.

As odd as it seemed to her, the one she decided she needed to talk to was Rogers himself. Being male and having once been the "overlooked, under-appreciated" one, perhaps he would be able to bring insight.

She found him in his quarters, drawing. Whenever he had downtime, you could be guaranteed that he would have his sketch pad in hand and a pencil, charcoal or some such thing and be scratching away.

"Steve? Do you have a minute? I'd like to talk."

He turned, blond head catching the warm lights of his room and a smile crossed his face. He put his drawing supplies down on his desk and stood, crossing to her. "Of course, Natasha." His face grew serious and his voice dropped, "Is this about the mission?"

She shook her head, "No. I need....I need advice."

Steve quirked an eyebrow at her. "You need advice. From me. And it's nothing to do with the mission? What do you need, Natasha?"

She came in to the room, sitting down at the chair sitting opposite from his. She had showered and changed and was now in her civilian clothes. She was reasonably sure that the catsuit wasn't coming into play this time. She pressed her hands down the lengths of her thighs, smoothing out her slacks and giving herself a chance to say this properly.

Steve followed her, eyes hooded as he watched the redhead in front of him. She was good at what she did. No one who'd ever fought at her side would think differently and she was the one who managed to get under Loki's skin to find out his plans. He sat down again, picking up his pencil and pad. He flipped to a new piece of paper and began sketching. He waited. Natasha was a woman of few words. If nothing else, the ice had taught him to be patient. He would know what he needed to know in situations like this when the other person was ready and not an minute before.

For several minutes, the silence remained, her glancing around the room, him drawing. Eventually, she looked at him directly and said, "You don't want to sleep with me, right?"

Cap damned near choked on his own tongue. Blue eyes wide and staring, he said, "No, no I don't. Why do you ask?" Oh Lord, what time bomb was he stepping into now?

"Good," she replied with a firm nod of her head. She pursed her lips and then started, "I wouldn't want to go into this with any misconceptions. We're undercover together on this mission but our covers are strictly for this mission. Nothing more. When we were briefed on our covers and you asked if that mean you might have to kiss me, that wasn't a veiled request that we do. I'm am sure of that."

He nodded vehemently. "Natasha, don't get me wrong. You're a beautiful woman and when you find the right guy...well, things will just happen. But I'm not him. I respect you as a warrior and a teammate but that's where it ends. I asked because I wanted to give you the chance to object if you were going to. No one should have to kiss someone else because of orders." His mouth twisted on the last word. It was the one thing he still objected to with SHIELD. The things they periodically expected of Agents ran across the grain of his sensibilities. "I want you to know, even now. Anything feels wrong, you don't feel comfortable doing ANYTHING with me, let me know. I am not the kind of - "

Natasha cut him off with a small hand on his knee. "Steve, I'm aware of all that. As I said, I knew it wasn't a veiled request to get to kiss me. But I think that Barton may think that we might work too well as a team." She paused, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, "And I think he's jealous."

Ah. Jealous partner. Might as well be the jealous boyfriend. Steve wasn't sure entirely what was going on between the master assassin and the master archer, but he had an inkling. They weren't as entirely circumspect as they might have thought and he wasn't as much of a unobservant throwback of a bygone era as the others occasionally accused him of being. He kept sketching, strokes going quicker as he moved. Steve knew that if he was smart, he would make sure to stay clear of any misunderstandings with Hawkeye. Clint was a good guy. He didn't deserve to question if his partner was his partner.

"Natasha?" he asked diffidently.

"Yes, Steve," she replied.

"I think - coming from a guy perspective? You might want to tell him. Let him know that you're not in the market for a new partner." Fingers quick, his eye flicking back and forth from the paper to his subject.

"I did tell him, Steve. I told him outright that he was the only partner for me." Her brows furrowed as she spoke, "It was like he didn't hear what I said. Then I hit him. Not hard, didn't even break his jaw. Now he's angry."

Steve shook his head, "He's angry because you socked him in the jaw after telling him that he was the only one for you." Heaving a sigh, a small smile knocking around the edges of his lips. "Natasha, you are one special dame. Not everyone declares their loyalty to someone by punching them. At least not most dames I've ever met." His eyes went a little soft as he remembered Peggy and could picture her pulling that off.

Natasha shrugged, "He kept pestering me. He pushed it and we were sparring and I landed a punch. If he had been paying attention, he might have had a chance at not getting hit." She frowned, "Then he started acting like he was a lovesick teenaged boy who had been turned down by his first crush."

Steve bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. That Natasha Romanov, one of the greatest interrogators on the planet, hadn't cottoned to the fact that her partner was head over heels in love with her struck him as funny.   
  
"Natasha, have you considered the possibility that Barton might not just think of you as a partner and friend, but as more?" His lips quirked as he fought to keep his self control. "Things may have changed a lot in the past 70 years but where I come from, a fella sticks his neck out for a gal as often as Clint has and stays by her side through thick and thin? He's gone on that girl. You might want to consider that he might be jealous."

The redhead looked at him, her head cocked slightly to the side. "Jealous. Barton? Of you?" Steve didn't think she needed to sound quite so incredulous but he understood her point. While he had a profound amount of respect for her abilities, he wasn't about to get caught up in dealing with the mess that was the Black Widow. "Why would Barton be jealous of you?" she asked, "He's my partner, not you."

"Natasha." Steve said in his calmest, Captain America-est voice, trying not to get irritated at the idea that he might not be worth being jealous over. "Natasha, I think you need to find a way to tell that to Barton. Wait. No. Don't tell him. Show him." Steve swallowed a smile, "You two have always communicated better through actions and symbols than words. Use that."

She nodded and thanked him, leaving him as she strode away. He went back to his drawing, grabbing a new sheet of paper and sketching his friends. As his pencil flew, the image of a sober faced woman and a sharp eyed man formed, facing each other. If he was forced to admit it, he'd say that they were staring into each other's eyes. Maybe even a little longingly.

Natasha went out into the streets of New York on a mission. She had seen what she wanted to get a while back, noting it at the time and thinking it was amusing but doing nothing with it. Now she had a purpose. A small jewelry store that Pepper had pulled her into in one of her insistent "girl's night' adventures, which normally left Natasha yawning discretely and waiting for the evening to end, held a small silver necklace. The necklace was a simple chain with a stylized arrow that ran tip to vanes along the chain.

She had considered purchasing it at the time and giving it to Barton, but it was too light. It was insufficiently hefty to suit his personal style and he would have endlessly bitched that it was girly. He would have worn it, there was no doubt of that. He couldn't complain if he wasn't wearing it. She had put it out of her mind then. Now she considered it another way. If what Clint needed was some kind of visible symbol of her fidelity to him as a partner, perhaps taking the American trait of wearing something of the others, or in this case, symbolic of the other, would help him feel better.

Shaking her head and paying the young woman at the till for the necklace, she declined the packaging and fastened it around her neck. It fell just at the points of her collarbone. It should be fine and there shouldn't be worry of it being damaged. One of the good things about it was that the clasp, instead of being the normal hook and ring was a pair of rare earth magnets. Apparently this was becoming a trend in the accessory world. Natasha liked it because it made the necklace much easier to slip off if someone tried to use it as a garrote.

She headed back to headquarters to gather her gear and to pick up her dufflebag of her costumes for this mission. Rifling through it, it was mostly jeans, hoodies, t-shirts and the usual assortment of feminine undergarments. Fortunately, the jeans were all made of a stretch material, so should she need to fight, she would not be constrained by stiff cotton. Collectively, the clothes would make her appear 10 years younger than she was, but that worked. She was, by nature, more mature and she needed to be able to blend in as a plausible mate to the youthful looking Rogers.

When she glanced up, it was heading on midnight. Wheels up was in 4 hours. She was as ready as she could be, minus getting sleep but sleep had always been a premium she could ignore when needed. What she needed right now was to talk to Clint. If Clint was sulking, she knew where she could find him.

The range was quiet. Not much call for it at that hour of the day but she had called it. There was her partner, bow in hand, gleaming from the oiling he must have given it recently and firing arrow after arrow at a series of dummies as they popped up from behind and around various walls. She watched him silently for a few minutes and then crossed towards him. When he spun to bring the bow facing her, she stopped.

His eyes widened as he realized she was there and not one of the automatic targets. "Dammit, Tasha, don't sneak up on a guy! I could have shot you!" He lowered the bow, snapping it back to its packing form to give himself something to concentrate on instead of the awkward silence between them. He didn't really know what to say to her. She'd made it pretty clear that any claim he thought he had to her was only in his mind.

Damn. He pushed his feelings down into the small box they always lived in when he was with her and mentally put on his big boy pants and turned to face the redhead. He found her staring at him with the oddest expression on her face, like she was trying to see something more than just him. Or through him or something. He'd had her scrutinize him many times over the years as she tried to comprehend his idioms, his beliefs, his attempts to teach her all about American culture - at least give her up to date American culture, not something that was straight out of the 1950's.

He endured her stare for a minute till the fidgets got to him. He finally gave in and leaned on the table his bow rested on, ass resting there as he waited for her. He picked up an arrow that he had promised to test and hadn't figure out what he didn't really like about it (flew fine, did a cool rebound thing when it struck, what the hell was wrong with it? Shouldn't an arrow that hits multiple targets be cool? Maybe he should come back to this when he wasn't cheesed that his partner had chosen Captain Fucking America instead of him. Probably.) She was still staring at him. Only now she had this look on her face that was a cross between affectionate and like she was going to call him an idiot. Granted, those two often went together.

"Nat, you're wheels up in less than 4 hours. Why are you here?" he asked, voice weary and rough from lack of use.

She stepped forward, lips pursed slightly as she continued to look at him. He was the Hawk. Let him figure it out.

He stared at her as she silently walked towards him. They normally didn't talk much, it just wasn't their thing. He talked more to her when they were on an op, the chatter of a bored sniper keeping his mind alert while he held his body steady, ready to drop whomever made the mistake of trying to harm his partner. This was different. This wasn't the comfortable, companionable silence that was their normal M.O. but he could almost hear the expression on her face. "Come on, Barton, you're not that dense," it said. "You can figure this out." He looked in her eyes, his narrowing as he tried to read the expression on her perfect porcelain face. He knew every line, every twitch, every bit of topography that made up her face and there was nothing there except that expectation that he could figure this out.

"Tasha? Look, it's late. You need the sleep and so do I? I mean, I'm not going with you or anything, but it's been a long..." Natasha took another step forward and stood in the slight brightness of an overhead halogen light and something caught his eye.

A little silver necklace graced her throat. He'd never seen her wear anything at her throat outside of a mission. Yes, she was going on one soon, but she wasn't wearing ..."that's an arrow. That's an arrow on the necklace around the throat of my partner." Clint's head swam for a moment as he tried to absorb that thought. "That's an ARROW on the the necklace around the throat of my partner who's leaving to go undercover with Steve Fucking Rogers in three hours and twenty seven minutes, not that anyone's counting." His thoughts finally slotted in place.

"Nat? Why do you have an arrow around your throat?" he asked, wanting to hope but still terrified of spooking his partner.

"Clint? You're an idiot. Why do you think I have an arrow around my throat?" She came closer to him, stood between his legs as he rested against the table and looked up at him. "You were worried I didn't know who my partner was." Her hand reached his and brought it to the little silver arrow. "I know exactly who he is. I am assigned to work with Rogers. I want you." She bit her lip, "I want you to know that you're the only partner I ever want. You won't be with me, but at least this will be. I'm yours, Clint. Your partner. Your girl. Always will be. Understood?"

You could have knocked Clint down with a feather. He was standing with the woman he was absolutely nuts about between his legs telling him that she was his. Had marked herself as such. She was standing there, silver arrow glinting in the damned harsh halogen light, looking at him with her steady "You're an idiot,Barton" gaze and he was struck by lightning. "My girl? Did you just say my girl?" he asked, incredulous.

"Yes, you idiot. Your girl. Now, are you done being an idiot and sulking?" She looked at him with the small quirk to her mouth that was the sign to him that she was this side of laughing out loud at him. "I'm ready to kiss and make up now," she said, rolling her eyes that she had to say that much.

Ready to...yeah. Yeah, he could do that. Clint slowly brought his hands up her sides, leaving lots of opportunity for her to stop him in case he really WAS being an idiot and she didn't mean this the way he thought she meant it. His hands slid up to her shoulders and tugged her closer. She moved with him and there was a hint of a smile as she leaned in and kissed him gently. He could barely breathe and Natasha was kissing him, her hands threading through his short blond hair and pulling him closer to her. She kissed him until she nipped his lip to get a response beyond stunned adoration, at which point he got his shit together and kissed her back, corded arms wrapping tightly around her and dragging her in so their bodies were melded together.

He kissed her like she was the air he breathed and the life he needed to keep safe within him because she was. She returned it like he was the safest place she had ever known and wanted nothing more than to crawl inside of him and be secure from harm for the rest of her life. His hands went to cradle her head and back, hers to his shoulders, resting against the solid muscle there.

When he finally needed air again, Clint released Natasha from where he had her firmly locked to him, letting the two of them breathe. His forehead rested against hers and she could feel the racing of his heart under her hands. "Tasha? I don't want this to be just this time," he said, internally wincing. He half expected her to step back, the Black Widow in front of him once again, looking at him with that slightly quizzical expression that said that what he wanted and what she wanted were two totally different things.

Natasha didn't. She stayed there, her breath warm against his lips as she panted slightly. She took a deep breath, calming her own beating heart before she lifted her head so she could look in his shadowed eyes. "Barton, you're an idiot. You need to listen. Your partner. Your girl. Yours." She shook her head fondly and gave him a light swat to the chest. "This is not a one time thing. I do need to go to bed and get some sleep before I leave. Now, you have a choice." She stood up fully, a small smile gracing her lips, "You can come with me and help me sleep - JUST sleep, Barton. Or you can stay here and sulk - I mean shoot arrows more." She tugged at him as once again he looked a little stunned, "I have a preference."

She wanted him to come sleep with her. This wasn't a "once and done never to be spoken of again" thing. She wanted HIM. Clint wanted to turn cartwheels and scream like a teenager. He wanted to get on the com to the whole of SHIELD and tell all the losers who'd leered at her, who'd made comments about how utterly hot she was (until he'd glared at them and they found other - better - things to do) and tell them that not only was Clint Barton off the market but so was Natasha Romanov. Come sleep with her? Hell yes. He could fly if that's what she wanted.

"I think I'm done here," is what he managed to say, grabbing the case with his bow & quiver. "Let's go." He followed her out of the range and down the narrow corridors to her quarters. This was a Thursday that didn't follow the normal routine. They started in the range with him shooting arrows and they ended in the range with her wearing one. Thursday was now Clint's favourite damned day of the entire week.


End file.
